I Am, I Think, But I Can't Help It!

[LessMissAbs]

SIL is married to DHs brother. SIL introduced secret santa for all 3 siblings and their wives/husbands two years ago. Previously we just bought individual presents. (This is entirely separate from the children's presents, who will all get individual gifts). DH's brother for instance always bought me ordnance survey maps and other SIL and her husband always bought me the latest Now! cd, which was great.

Two years ago I got a green flowery Cath Kidston cloth bag, which I had never heard of at the time and I'm sorry to say, threw out in February (I know I should have given it to a charity shop). Last year I got toiletries which I never used and threw out too.

This year she wants to do it online with drawing names and a budget. This means registering our email addresses on a website that does this. I CBA. Neither can DH. I'm horrendously busy at work just now and can't be bothered faffing around with more emails in my leisure time. She sent me SIX text messages on Friday about it, despite me telling her I didnt want to do it by the 3rd one (I ignored the first 2) and 5 to DH. Which he ignored as he is really not allowed to text during working hours.

Am I mean and nasty not to take part and to think SIL has too much time on her hands?

I don't think its unreasonable to say that the secret santa thing has not been working as well for you as the old method used to, but I do think its not great to just ignore her texts.
What do the other sibling and SIL think?

We've done it at work this year it's bloody easy and u can put a list up for what u want so don't fear the website but if u don't want to do it generally that's fine Yanbu

I didn't ignore her texts, I simply didn't reply for 3 hours, by which time another two had arrived!

I don't get this? How were you doing secret Santa if you weren't picking an adults name at random and buying them a gift to a set budget?

Agree cba to the online version though.

But, yabu, would take you two minutes to text on behalf of yourself and DH.

How long would it take, really? Are you truly so much busier than everybody else?

If I'm brutally honest (sorry) it sounds like you're feeling sorry for yourself and are having a hissy fit because you might not get the precise present you want/because the present buying protocol has changed and you don't like it.

Lighten up, join in. Good luck!

Dh's family introduced that idea via bil's wife who is somewhat dictatorial. We said we'd rather go for token presents for the adults, and didn't want to join in that, so we haven't, and get them each something.

What happens for them is they "draw" a name, they then go and ask that person exactly what they want for Christmas, and buy that. Personally I think they might as well have just agreed that they'd all buy themselves something and not bother, as that's what it boils down to really.

But I don't get why you need to do it online. It can't be too difficult to organise someone to do it. Unless sil has been accused of working out the most generous present giver and making sure her and her dh always have them giving their presents. wouldn't put it past them

I'm honestly not bothered about getting particular presents, in fact left to my own devices I wouldn't bother, but I quite liked buying small, individual presents for other people. Its no big deal, I find adults getting all worked up over Christmas a bit icky.

DeWe Dh's family introduced that idea via BIL's wife who is somewhat dictatorial

If I didn't know better, I would think we shared SILs. She bosses BIL around like nothing else, and theres no way I'm trotting off to register on a website to further her control of Christmas!

We live hundreds of miles away from the rest of the family, we just want to catch up at Christmas and we have our own friends, so playing chummy-chummy with two sets of SILs and BILs is a bit fake.